Packaging operations in industry are of significant import with interest towards promoting the rapid, efficient and economical packaging of products for the market. In commercial applications, such as the packaging of groceries or household articles or trash, it is highly desirable to have means whereby a bag can be easily dispensed from a carton and held in an open position for receiving various types of contents. Although many bag dispensers are available from which bags can be dispensed one at a time, the bags, either made of paper base material of flexible plastic film material, are usually strong enough to contain various size and weight articles, but are not strong enough or have sufficient integrity to retain an upright open position during the packaging operation without some additional support or retaining means.
U.S. Pat. Nos. 810,329, 939,508, 1,653,393, 1,760,752, 1,895,904, 2,903,215 and 3,653,619 all disclose various support or retaining means for maintaining a bag in an open position to receive various articles. These references generally either disclose embodiments whereby a bag is first dispensed from a supply carton or station and unfolded, opened and then tucked or taped into a clip type means, or fed onto wickets through holes in the upper portion of the bags. Another embodiment (U.S. Pat. No. 810,329) discloses a bag holder having means for maintaining a bag in an open position while also having means for accommodating reserve bags. This reference, however, employs pressure type clip means for maintaining a bag in an open position and thus would require an operator to manipulate the top edge portion of a bag through several clip means before the bag is in an open position to receive articles.
In addition to the awkwardness of positioning an opened bag on known retaining or supporting means, the removal of the bag after its desired contents are fed therein has proven to be just as cumbersome and time consuming.
An approach to eliminate the use of retaining or supporting means to maintain a bag in an open position is to increase the rigidity of the bag by using a material which has sufficient integrity to enable the bag to retain an upright open position without support means. This approach, however, would require a great increase in material cost thus making it an impractical commercial alternative.
Filed concurrently herewith by applicant and incorporated herein by reference is United States Patent Application Ser. No. 782, 387 titled A BAG DISPENSER AND HOLDER disclosing a bag dispenser and support holder which comprises a brace member having a pair of outwardly distending spaced-apart, preferably substantially parallel, support members for supporting a plurality of flat or gusset bags through wicket holes in said bags; a first deformable, resilient, substantially arcuate member depending from the end of one of said spaced-apart support members; a second deformable, resilient arcuate member depending from the end of the other of said spaced-apart support members; and said deformable, resilient substantially arcuate members being outwardly and oppositely aligned in a common plane to define a substantial hoop configuration adapted to be intertwined with the mouth of the bag through bag wicket holes for supporting and maintaining the bag in an open position.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a bag dispenser and support holder that will permit bags to be dispensed one at a time and sequentially held in an open position for receiving various size articles.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a bag dispenser and holder that is designed to facilitate the opening of a bag as it is fed from a supply station, to maintain the bag in an open position, and then once the bag has received its desired contents, it is also designed to facilitate the closing of the bag.
Another object of this invention is to provide a bag dispenser and holder that is adapted to accommodate a plurality of reserve bags; adapted to facilitate the opening of a bag as it is fed from the reserve; adapted to maintain the opened bag in an upright position; and adapted to facilitate the closing of the bag once it is filled with a desired size and quantity of articles.
Another object of this invention is to provide a bag dispenser and holder that is easy to fabricate and easy to use.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a bag dispenser and holder that is designed to maintain a bag in an open position and adapted such that the bag can be closed after partial filling and then reopened to complete the filling of the bag thereby maintaining sanitary conditions during an interrupted filling operation.
The foregoing and additional objects will become more fully apparent from the following description and the accompanying drawing.